LONDON (ShareCast) - (ShareCast News) - National and regional news publisher Trinity Mirror announced on Monday that it had made good progress against its strategic initiatives as it continued to deliver strong cash flows in its third quarter of trading.
Trinity said that it had made a cost saving of £20m in the nine months leading to 30 September, £5m ahead of target and at the same time cut its net debt £3m to £19m.

However, group revenue fell 8% on a like-for-like basis in the quarter as the company said it had experienced improved trends in nationally sourced print advertising revenues, but noted local advertising had remained particularly volatile and challenging.

Revenue also sank 9% in Trinity's publishing arm and 10% in the print division, while digital income edged up 4%.

Trinity highlighted that fact that it had delivered continued growth in digital display and transactional revenue, gaining 14% over the same time a year earlier, but its classified digital revenues remained under significant pressure throughout the quarter.

When discussing its previously announced £10m share buyback programme, Trinity said it had acquired 8.9m shares for £9m and had paid back £7.5m to pension schemes related to the share buyback.

Trinity also used the Monday trading update to advise investors that it had made continued progress in its discussions to acquire 100% the Express newspapers and various other Northern and Shell publishing assets and would provide further updates when appropriate.

As of 1450 BST, shares had retreated 3.90% to 80.00p.

Email this article to a friend

or share it with one of these popular networks:

• DIGG
• FACEBOOK
• STUMBLEUPON
• MIXX
• YAHOO BUZZ
• DELICIOUS
• REDDIT
• NEWSVINE